ADDITIONAL POEMS.

AYLMER'S FIELD.

| With Averill, and a year or two before

Call’d to the bar, but ever call'd away
1793.

By one low voice to one dear neighborhood,
Dost are our frames; and, gilded dust, our pride | Would often, in his walks with Edith, claim
Looks only for a moment whole and sound; A distant kinship to the gracious blood
Like that long-buried body of the king,

That shook the heart of Edith hearing him.
Found lying with his urns and ornaments,
Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven,

Sanguine he was: a but less vivid hue
Slipt into ashes and was found no more.

Than of that islet in the chestnut-bloom

Flamed in his cheek; and eager eyes, that still Here is a story which in rougher shape

Took joyful note of all things joyful, beam'd Came from a grizzled cripple, whom I saw

Beneath a manelike mass of rolling gold, Sunning himself in a waste field alone

| Their best and brightest, when they dwelt on hers, Old, and a mine of memories-who had served, Edith, whose pensive beauty, perfect else, Long since, a bygone Rector of the place,

But subject to the season or the mood, And been himself a part of what he told.

Shone like a mystic star between the less

And greater glory varying to and fro, Sır AYLMER AYLMER, that almighty man,

We know not wherefore; bounteously made, The county God-in whose capacious hall,

And yet so finely, that a troublous touch Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree Thinn'd, or would seem to thin her in a day, Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king

A joyous to dilate, as toward the light. Whose blazing wyvern weathercock'd the spire, And these had been together from the first. Stood from his walls and wing'd his entry-gates Leolin's first nurse was, five years after, hers: And swang besides on many a windy sign

So much the boy foreran ; but when his date Whose eyes from under a pyramidal head

Doubled her own, for want of playmates, he Saw from his windows nothing save his own (Since Averill was a decade and a half What lovelier of his own had he than her,

His elder, and their parents underground) His only child, his Edith, whom he loved

Had tost his ball and flown his kite, and rollid As heiress and not heir regretfully?

His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt But "he that marries her marries her name"

Against the rush of the air in the prone swing, This fiat somewhat soothed himself and wife, Made blossom-ball or daisy-chain, arranged His wife a faded beauty of the Baths,

Her garden, sow'd her name and kept it green Insipid as the queen upon a card :

In living letters, told her fairy-tales,
Her all of thought and bearing hardly more Show'd her the fairy footings on the grass,
Than his own shadow in a sickly sun.

The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms, .

The petty marestail forest, fairy pines, A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn,

Or from the tiny pitted target blew Little about it stirring save a brook!

What look'd a flight of fairy arrows aim'd A sleepy land where under the same wheel

All at one mark, all hitting: make-believes The same old rut would deepen year by year; For Edith and himself: or else he forged, Where almost all the village had one name;

But that was later, boyish histories Where Aylmer follow'd Aylmer at the Hall

Of battle, bold adventure, dungeon, wreck, And Averill Averill at the Rectory

Flights, terrors, sudden rescues, and true love Thrice over; so that Rectory and Hall,

Crown'd after trial; sketches rude and faint, Bound in an immemorial intimacy,

But where a passion yet unborn perhaps
Were open to each other; tho' to dream

Lay hidden as the music of the moon
That Love could bind them closer well had made Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale.
The hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up

And thus together, save for college-times
With horror, worse than had he heard his priest Or Temple-eaten terms, a couple, fair
Preach an inverted scripture, sons of men

As ever painter painted, poet sang, Daughters of God; so sleepy was the land.

Or Heav'n in lavish bounty moulded, grew.

And more and more, the maiden woman-grown, And might not Averill, had he will'd it so, He wasted hours with Averill; there, when first Somewhere beneath his own low range of roofs, The tented winter-field was broken up Have also set his many-shielded tree?

Into that phalanx of the summer spears There was an Aylmer-Averill marriage once,

That soon should wear the garland; there again When the red rose was redder than itself,

When burr and bine were gather'd; lastly there And York's white rose as red as Lancaster's,

At Christmas; ever welcome at the Hall, With wounded peace which each had prick'd to On whose dull sameness his full tide of youth death.

Broke with a phosphorescence cheering even “Not proven," Averill said, or laughingly,

My lady; and the Baronet yet had laid "Some other race of Averills"-prov'n or no, No bar between them: dull and self-involved, What cared he? what, if other or the same?

Tall and erect, but bending from his height He lean'd not on his fathers but himself.

With half-allowing smiles for all the world, But Leolin, his brother, living oft

| And mighty courteous in the main-his pride

Lay deeper than to wear it as his ring

Sir Aylmer half forgot his lazy smile He, like an Aylmer in his Aylmerism,

Of patron “Good ! my lady's kinsman! good !" Would care no more for Leolin's walking with her My lady with her fingers interlock'd, Than for his old Newfoundland's, when they ran And rotatory thumbs on silken knees, To loose him at the stables, for he rose

Call'd all her vital spirits into each ear
Twofooted at the limit of his chain,

To listen : unawares they flitted off,
Roaring to make a tbird: and how should Love, Busying themselves about the flowerage
Whom the cross-lightnings of four chance-met eyes That stood from out a stiff brocade in which,
Flash into fiery life from nothing, follow

The meteor of a splendid season, she,
Such dear familiarities of dawn?

Once with this kinsman, ah so long ago, Seldom, but when he does, Master of all.

Stept thro’ the stately minuet of those days:

But Edith's eager fancy hurried with him
So these young hearts not knowing that they loved, Snatch'd thro' the perilous passes of his life:
Not she at least, nor conscious of a bar

Till Leolin ever watchful of her eye
Between them, nor by plight or broken ring

Hated him with a momentary hate. Bound, but an immemorial intimacy,

Wife-hunting, as the rumor ran, was he: Wander'd at will, but oft accompanied

I know not, for he spoke not, only shower'd
By Averill: his, a brother's love, that hung

His oriental gifts on every one
With wings of brooding shelter o'er her peace, And most on Edith : like a storm he came,
Might have been other, save for Leolin's-

And shook the house, and like a storm he went.
Who knows? but so they wander'd, hour by hour
Gather'd the blossom that rebloom'd, and drank

Among the gifts he left her (possibly The magic cup that fill'd itself apew.

He flow'd and ebb’d uncertain, to return

When others had been tested) there was one, A whisper half reveal'd her to herself.

A dagger, in rich sheath with jewels on it For out beyond her lodges, where the brook Sprinkled about in gold that branch'd itself Vocal, with here and there a silence, ran

Fine as ice-ferns on January panes By sallowy rims, arose the laborers' homes,

Made by a breath. I know not whence at first, A frequent haunt of Edith, on low knolls

Nor of what race, the work; but as he told That dimpling died into each other, huts

The story, storming a hill-fort of thieves At random scatter'd, each a nest in bloom.

He got it; for their captain after fight, Her art, her hand, her counsel all had wrought His comrades having fought their last below, About them : here was one that, summer-blanch'd, Was climbing up the valley; at whom he shot: Was parcel-bearded with the traveller's-joy

Down from the beetling crag to which he clung In Autumn, parcel ivy-clad ; and here

Tumbled the tawny rascal at his feet, The warm-blue breathings of a hidden hearth

This dagger with him, which when now admired
Broke from a bower of vine and honeysuckle: By Edith whom his pleasure was to please,
One look'd all rosetree, and another wore

At once the costly Sahib yielded to her.
A close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars :
This had a rosy sea of gillyflowers

And Leolin, coming after he was gone,
About it; this a milky-way on earth,

Tost over all her presents petulantly: Like visions in the Northern dreamer's heavens, And when she show'd the wealthy scabbard, saying A lily-avenue climbing to the doors ;

“Look what a lovely piece of workmanship!" One, almost to the martin-haunted eaves

Slight was his answer “Well-I care not for it :" A summer burial deep in hollyhocks ;

Then playing with the blade he prick'd his hand, Each, its own charm; and Edith's everywhere; "A gracious gift to give a lady, this !" And Edith ever visitant with him,

“But would it be more gracious," ask'd the girl, He but less loved than Edith, of her poor:

“Were I to give this gift of his to one For she-so lowly-lovely and so loving,

That is no lady?” “Gracious ? No," said he. Queenly responsive when the loyal hand

“Me?-but I cared not for it. O pardon me, Rose from the clay it work'd in as she past, I seem to be ungraciousness itself.” Not sowing hedgerow texts and passing by, “Take it,” she added sweetly, “ tho' his gift; Nor dealing goodly counsel from a height

For I am more ungracious ev'n than you. That makes the lowest hate it, but a voice

I care not for it either;" and he said Of comfort and an open hand of help,

"Why then I love it:" but Sir Aylmer past, A splendid presence flattering the poor roofs

And neither loved nor liked the thing he heard. Revered as theirs, but kindlier than themselves To ailing wife or wailing infancy

The next day came a neighbor. Blues and reds Or old bedridden palsy,-was adored ;

They talk'd of: blues were sure of it, he thought: : He, loved for her and for himself. A grasp

Then of the latest fox_where started-kill'd
Having the warmth and muscle of the heart, In such a bottom: “Peter had the brush,
A childly way with children, and a laugh

My Peter, first:" and did Sir Aylmer know
Ringing like proven golden coinage true,

That great pock-pitten fellow had been caught ? Were no false passport to that easy realm,

Then made his pleasure echo, hand to hand, Where once with Leolin at her side the girl,

And rolling as it were the substance of it Nursing a child, and turning to the warmth

Between his palms a moment up and downThe tender pink five-beaded baby-soles,

“The birds were warm, the birds were warm upon Heard the good mother softly whisper “Bless,

him; God bless 'em; marriages are made in Heaven.” We have him now:” and had Sir Aylmer heard-:

Nay, but he must--the land was ringing of itA flash of semi-jealousy cleard it to her.

This blacksmith-border marriage--one they knewMy Lady's Indian kipsman unannounced

Raw from the nursery--who could trust a child? With half a score of swarthy faces came.

That cnrsed France with her egalities ! His own, tho' keen and bold and soldierly,

And did Sir Aylmer (deferentially Sear'1 by the close ecliptic, was not fair;

With nearing chair and lower'd accent) thinkFairer his talk, a tongue that ruled the honr,

For people talk'd that it was wholly wise Tho' seeming boastful: so when first he dash'd To let that handsome fellow Averill walk Into the chronicle of a deedful day,

| So freely with his daughter? people talk'd

The boy might get a notion into him ;

| He must have seen, himself had seen it long; The girl might be entangled ere she knew.

He must have known, himself had known: besides, Sir Aylmer slowly stiffening spoke:

He never yet had set his daughter forth “The girl and boy, Sir, know their differences !" Here in the woman-markets of the west, "Good," said his friend, “but watch !" and he Where our Caucasians let themselves be sold. "enough,

Some one, he thought, had slander'd Leolin to him. More than enough, Sir! I can guard my own.” “ Brother, for I have loved you more as son They parted, and Sir Aylmer Aylmer watch'd. Than brother, let me tell you: I myself

What is their pretty saying ? jilted, is it?
Pale, for on her the thunders of the house

Jilted I was: I say it for your peace.
Had fallen first, was Edith that same night: Pain'd, and, as bearing in myself the shame
Pale as the Jephtha's daughter, a rough piece The woman should have borne, humiliated,
Of early rigid color, under which

I lived for years a stunted sunless life;
Withdrawing by the counter door to that

Till after our good parents past away Which Leolin open'd, she cast back upon him Watching your growth, I seem'd again to grow. A piteous glance, and vanish'd. He, as oue Leolin, I almost sin in envying you: Caught in a burst of unexpected storm,

The very whitest lamb in all my fold And pelted with outrageous epithets,

Loves you: I know her: the worst thought she has Turning beheld the Powers of the House

Is whiter even than her pretty hand: On either side the hearth, indignant; her,

She must prove true: for, brother, where two fight Cooling her false cheek with a feather-fan,

The strongest wins, and truth and love are strength, Him glaring, by his own stale devil spurr'd,

And you are happy: let her parents be.” And, like a beast hard-ridden, breathing hard. “Ungenerous, dishonorable, base,

But Leolin cried out the more upon themPresumptuous ! trusted as he was with her,

Insolent, brainless, heartless! heiress, wealth, The sole succeeder to their wealth, their lands, Their wealth, their heiress! wealth enough was theirs The last remaining pillar of their house,

For twenty matches. Were he lord of this, The one transmitter of their ancient name,

Why twenty boys and girls should marry on it, Their child.” “Our child !" "Our heiress !" "Ours !" | And forty blest ones bless him, and himself for still,

Be wealthy still, ay wealthier. He believed Like echoes from beyond a hollow, came

This filthy marriage-hindering Mammon made Her sicklier iteration. Last he said

The harlot of the cities; nature crost “Boy, mark me! for your fortunes are to make. Was mother of the foul adulteries I swear you shall not make them out of mine. That saturate soul with body. Name, too ! name, Now inasmuch as you have practised on her,

Their ancient name! they might be proud ; its worth Perplext her, made her half forget herself,

Was being Edith's. Ah how pale she had look'd Swerve from her duty to herself and us

Darling, to-night! they must have rated her Things in an Aylmer deem'd impossible,

Beyond all tolerance. These old pheasant-lords, Far as we track ourselves—I say that this,

These partridge-breeders of a thousand years, Else I withdraw favor and countenance

Who had mildew'd in their thousands, doing nothing From you and yours forever-shall you do.

Since Egbert-why, the greater their disgrace ! Sir, when you see her-but you shall not see her - Fall back upon a name ! rest. rot in that! No, you shall write, and not to her, but me:

Not keep it noble, make it nobler? fools, And you shall say that having spoken with me, With such a vantage-ground for nobleness, And after look'd into yourself, you find

He had known a man, a quintessence of man, That you meant nothing--as indeed you know The life of all-who madly loved-and he, That you meant nothing. Such a match as this! Thwarted by one of those old father-fools, Impossible, prodigious !" These were words,

Had rioted his life out, and made an end. As meted by his measure of himself,

He would not do it! her sweet face and faith Arguing boundiess forbearance: after which,

Held him from that: but he had powers, he knew it: And Leolin's horror-stricken answer, “I

Back would he to his studies, make a name, So foul a traitor to myself and her,

Name, fortune too: the world should ring of him Never, O never,” for about as long

To shame these mouldy Aylmers in their graves : As the wind-hover hangs in balance, paused

Chancellor, or what is greatest would he beSir Aylmer reddening from the storm within, “O brother, I am grieved to iearn your griefThen broke all bonds of courtesy, and crying Give me my fling, and let me say my say." “Boy, should I find you by my doors again My men shall lash you from them like a dog; At which, like one that sees his own excess, Hence !” with a sudden execration drove

And easily forgives it as his own. The footstool from before him, and arose ;

He laugh'd; and then was mute; but presently So, stammering “scoundrel” out of teeth that ground Wept like a storm: and honest Averill seeing As in a dreadful dream, while Leolin still

How low his brother's mood had fallen, fetch'd Retreated half-aghast, the fierce old man

His richest beeswing from a binn reserved Follow'd, and under his own lintel stood

For banquets, praised the waning red, and told Storming with lifted hands, a hoary face

The vintage--when this Aylmer came of ageMeet for the reverence of the hearth, but now, Then drank and past it: till at length the two, Beneath a pale and unimpassion'd moon,

Tho' Leolin flamed and fell again, agreed Vext with unworthy madness, and deform'd.

That much allowance must be made for men.

After an angry dream this kindlier glow
Slowly and conscious of the rageful eye

Faded with morning, but his purpose held.
That watch'd him, till he heard the ponderous door
Close, crashing with long echoes thro' the land, Yet once by night again the lovers met,
Went Leolin; then, his passions all in flood

A perilous meeting under the tall pines
And masters of his motion, furiously

That darken'd all the northward of her Hall. Down thro' the bright lawns to his brother's ran, Him, to her meek and modest bosom prest And foam'd away his heart at Averill's ear:

In agony, she promised that no force, Whom Averill solaced as he might, amazed :

Persuasion, no, nor death could alter her: The man was his, had been his father's friend: He, passionately hopefuller, would go,

Labor for his own Edith, and return

nor, and became in other fields In such a sunlight of prosperity

A mockery to the yeomen over ale, He should not be rejected. “Write to me!

And laughter to their lords: but those at home. They loved me, and because I love their child As hunters round a hunted creature draw They hate me: there is war between us, dear, The cordon close and closer toward the death, Which breaks all bonds but ours; we must remain Narrow'd her goings out and comings in; Sacred to one another." So they talk'd,

Forbade her first the house of Averill, Poor children, for their comfort: the wind blew; Then closed her access to the wealthier farms, The rain of heaven, and their own bitter tears, Last from her own home-circle of the poor Tears, and the careless rain of heaven, mixt

They barr'd her: yet she bore it: yet her cheek Upon their faces, as they kiss'd each other

Kept color: wondrous ! but, O mystery! In darkness, and above them roard the pine. What amulet drew her down to that old oak,

So old, that twenty years before, a part So Leolin went; and as we task ourselves

Falling had let appear the brand of JohnTo learn a language known but smatteringly Once grovelike, each huge arm a tree, but now In phrases here and there at random, toil'd

The broken base of a black tower, a cave Mastering the lawless science of our law,

Of touchwood, with a single flourishing spray. That codeless myriad of precedent,

There the manorial lord too curiously That wilderness of single instances,

Raking in that millennial touchwood-dust Thro' which a few, by wit or fortune led,

Found for himself a bitter treasure-trove; May beat a pathway out to wealth and fame. Burst his own wyvern on the seal, and read The jests, that flash'd about the pleader's room, Writhing a letter from his child, for which Lightning of the hour, the pun, the scurrilous tale, Came at the moment Leolin's emissary, Old scandals buried now seven decades deep

A crippled lad, and coming turn'd to fly, In other scandals that have lived and died,

But scared with threats of jail and halter gave And left the living scandal that shall die

To him that flusterd his poor parish wits Were dead to him already ; bent as he was

The letter which he brought, and swore besides To make disproof of scorn, and strong in hopes, To play their go-between as heretofore And prodigal of all brain-labor he,

Nor let them know themselves betray'd, and then, Charier of sleep, and wine and exercise,

Soul-stricken at their kindness to him, went Except when for a breathing-while at eve

Hating his own lean heart and miserable.
Some niggard fraction of an hour he ran
Beside the river-bank: and then indeed

Thenceforward oft from out a despot dream
Harder the times were, and the hands of power Panting he woke, and oft as early as dawn
Were bloodier, and the according hearts of men Aroused the black republic on his elms,
Seem'd harder too; but the soft river-breeze, Sweeping the frothfly from the fescue, brush'd
Which fand'd the gardens of that rival rose

Thro' the dim meadow toward his treasure-trove, Yet fragrant in a heart remembering

Seized it, took home, and to my lady, who made His former talks with Edith, on him breathed A downward crescent of her minion mouth, Far purelier in his rushings to and fro,

Listless in all despondence, read; and tore, After his books, to flush his blood with air,

As if the living passion symbol'd there Then to his books again. My lady's cousin,

Were living nerves to feel the rent; and burnt, Half-sickening of his pensioned afternoon,

Now chafing at his own great self defied, Drove in upon the the student once or twice, Now striking on huge stumbling-blocks of scorn Ran a Malayan muck against the times,

In babyisms, and dear diminutives Had golden hopes for France and all mankind, Scatter'd all over the vocabulary Answer'd all queries touching those at home

Of such a love as like a chidden babe, With a heaved shoulder and a saucy smile,

After much wailing, hush'd itself at last And fain had haled him out into the world,

Hopeless of answer: then tho' Averill wrote And air'd him there: his nearer friend would say, And bade him with good heart sustain himself“Screw not the cord too sharply lest it snap." All would be well—the lover heeded not, Then left alone he pluck'd her dagger forth

But passionately restless came and went, From where his worldless heart had kept it warm, And rustling once at night about the place, Kissing his vows upon it like a knight.

There by a keeper shot at, slightly hurt, And wrinkled benchers often talk'd of him

Raging return'd: nor was it well for her Approvingly, and prophesied his rise:

Kept to the garden now, and grove of pines, For heart, I think, help'd head: her letters too, Watch'd even there : and one was set to watch Tho' far between, and coming fitfully

The watcher, and Sir Aylmer watch'd them all, Like broken music, written as she found

Yet bitterer from his readings : once indeed. Or made occasion, being strictly watch'd,

Warm'd with his wines, or taking pride in her, Charm'd him thro' every labyrinth till he saw She look'd so sweet, he kiss'd her tenderly, An end, a hope, a light breaking upon him.

Not knowing what possess'd him: that one kiss

Was Leolin's one strong rival upon earth ; But they that cast her spirit into flesh,

Seconded, for my lady follow'd suit, Her worldly-wise begetters, plagued themselves Seem'd hope's returning rose: and then ensued To sell her, those good parents, for her good.

A Martin's summer of his faded love,
Whatever eldest-born of rank or wealth

Or ordeal by kindness; after this
Might lie within their compass, him they lured He seldom crost his child without a sneer;
Into their net made pleasant by the baits

The mother flow'd in shallower acrimonies:
Of gold and beauty, wooing him to woo.

Never one kindly smile, one kindly word:
So month by month the noise about their doors, So that the gentle creature shut from all
And distant blaze of those dull banquets, made Her charitable use, and face to face
The nightly wirer of their innocent hare

With twenty months of silence, slowly lost
Falter before he took it. All in vain.

Nor greatly cared to lose, her hold on life. Sullen, defiant, pitying, wroth, return'd

Last, some low fever ranging round to spy Leolin's rejected rivals from their suit

The weakness of a people or a house, so often, that the folly taking wings

Like flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or men, Slipt o'er those lazy limits down the wind

| Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt